Tyler Green Modern Art Notes

The Matisse ‘armchair quote’ is back

Roberta Smith’s review of this Matisse show at MoMA opens with a quick skewering of one of the most tired, most misunderstood quotes in art history:

The Museum of Modern Art’s extraordinary “Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917” is not your garden-variety Matisse exhibition. It contains few signs of the artist who said a painting should be the equivalent of a soothing armchair. By the end of this show you may wonder if that Matisse ever really existed, despite his much-quoted, overinterpreted words to that effect.